Every school day, roughly 30 million students eat hot meals through the federally subsidized school lunch program. Participation is down by 2 million in the past four years, a decline that is part of the debate over reauthorization of child nutrition programs this year. USDA economists say the decline “appears to be driven by a drop in students taking paid lunch that began even earlier, in fiscal 2008,” when recession hit the country. In 2008, 47 percent of students not eligible for a free or reduced-price meal bought the full-price meal. The rate dropped to 37 percent in 2014, somewhat below the average of the 1990s.
The lower purchase rate was more common in rural, smaller and wealthier school districts than in poorer, larger, urban or suburban districts according to a survey by University of Illinois-Chicago.
Economists Katherine Ralston and Constance Newman list a handful of possible reasons for the decline in full-price meals. Some families may have decided to economize during the recession by packing lunch for their children. Changes in lunch menus, to reflect new calorie limits and requirements to serve more fruit, vegetables and whole grains, also could be a factor. The steepest declines in full-price sales occurred at the same time that the new menus appeared and when many schools were obliged to raise their prices to ensure they were not subsidizing the full-price meals. Higher prices “could have contributed modestly” to the decline, say Ralston and Newman.
“While not fully understood, the decline in paid-lunch participation rates since 2008 highlights the challenge of serving healthier meals across a diverse landscape of school meal programs,” they conclude in an article in USDA’s Amber Waves magazine.